By Mike Collins.

My trip to New Orleans started badly, delays in New York, a missed flight in Atlanta and finally arriving at Baton Rouge.
I caught a ride to New Orleans from one of my crew in a Ford excursion. It may as well have been a tank.

Rolling along with little traffic on the I10, I kept a lookout for signs of damage. Even entering the city I didn’t see much. The now infamous Superdome didn’t look all that bad.

Once we were back down at ground level I started to see signs of damage. A burned out hulk of a building here, blown out windows there. The central business district didn’t have much damage. Military humvees were everywhere. Seeing armed American soldiers on the streets of an American city brought back memories of 9/11. They weren’t good memories.

Pulling into the only hotel that we were able to book, I found myself a bit embarrassed. The ultra lavish hotel was a bit much, but having a large film crew requires a large place to stay. My feeling got worse when I saw my “suite”. It had six rooms. And a tv that rose from a beautiful wooden box at the foot of my bed.

After a quick meeting with my crew to go over the next dayss shoots, I took a walk into a largely empty French Quarter. I saw three other people on the street. Part of it may have been the unusual cold weather, it hovered in the low 40’s all week.

I stopped into a small bar named Jaminies and spoke with the Dublin-born bartender for a bit. The low number of people wasn’t unusual for what is considered normal in New Orleans these days.

I made my way back to the hotel and figured I’d get a good nights sleep before we started shooting in the morning. I was too embarrassed to elevate the tv.

I had been given an assignment to shoot a short documentary on the ongoing humanitarian crisis in the city and I didn’t know what to expect. How bad was the damage, how bad were the outlying wards? I wondered if people would talk to me.

The first trip out into the city was interesting. The French Quarter, the garden district and the central business district seemed to survive the one two punch of Katrina and Rita with very minor damage.

As we made our way farther into the city I started to see the signs. Spray painted x’s with various shorthand. I later learned that these were markers to let other search and rescue teams if the building had been entered, who had entered, if people or pets were found and what condition they were in.

Traveling down St. Claude we entered the 9th ward. Initially it didn’t seem so bad but that changed quickly. First were streets lined with debris, blown out windows, mud encrusted cars and trucks. A bit further and we began to see houses blasted in half, cars thrown up on porches and a boat jutting out of the second floor of a house.

We saw mostly contractors and the military, very few former residents. Those we did seemed like they were in a state of shock. Driving along Piety st. we saw a house where a group of men were working. One of them waved us over. He asked if we were ok, how we were doing, if we needed water. I told him we were here to shoot a documentary on the state of the city and those left behind.

He was happy to talk to someone about his situation. His name was Royce and he was here from north Carolina helping his Uncle Willie gut his home. Willie walked over and talked for a bit. He agreed to tell us his story on camera as he gave us a tour of his home.

Willie had lived in the 9th ward for the past 40 years and he wasn’t planning on leaving. Willie is like many of the people we met in the 9th Ward. They want to stay. Willie had said "This is my home and I'm too old to go anywhere else." What do we do with these people? I'm a bit stunned to see so few people in these areas other than the Red Cross and military.

We come upon the now infamous Industrial Canal and it's levees. The area is just utter destruction. Houses tossed into intersections, flattened cars. All that remains are the discarded pieces of peoples lives. We meet a woman named Ruby who tells me that she couldn't locate her family for weeks after they were evacuated. Imagine that. Not knowing if your loved ones were even alive or where they were.

Ruby plans on staying as well. I am struck by the quiet determination that many of these survivors have. Even knowing that this could happen again, they plan on staying. Personally I think it's a little crazy, but I admire their resolve.

After a few days of shooting in these horribly devastated areas I wonder if the city can come back, not when. I can't imagine any more damage if someone had set off an atomic bomb. It's just of a magnitude I couldn't comprehend without having seen it with my own eyes.

The last stop for the day was at Christ Church Cathedral which was holding the first large, open to the public event, a jazz orchestra concert. Irvin Mayfield, the leader of the orchestra is like many others. His father refused to evacuate and Irvin doesn't know what happened to him.

Irvin dedicates "Just A Closer Walk WIth Thee" to his father. There isn't a dry eye among the more than one thousand attendees. I learned yesterday that Irvin's father's body was identified. In a sense it's a small form of closure. At least the Mayfield's now know.

Early the next morning we go back to the Lower 9th Ward. I find an independent animal rescuer. She tells me about the dead dogs and cats as well as those she's managed to rescue. When she starts to talk about the city I notice what I've seen in many people who have survived a disaster, the onset of post traumatic stress disorder. She goes on and on and we let her talk. This is a city traumatized to it's core. The arrival of the holidays will make it worse for many.

The rescuer introduces me to a man named Mr. Gilette who rode out the storm in his home. He tells me of water up to his neck, and this is when he was on the top floor of his home. Mr. Gilette thinks this is a critical point in New Orleans's history. He thinks the city can and will come back. Mr. Gilette now spends his days going to abandoned homes and feeding now ownerless animals. It strikes me that this is a noble thing to do.

Mr. Gilette has a tangerine tree that survived the storm. He insists that my crew and I take as many tangerines as we can carry. This is a man who has little left and he is offering me food. The people of New Orleans have welcomed my crew and I with open arms and I will never forget them.

One of the large themes that we discovered is the effects of the racial divide in the city. Many of the poor African American survivors think that the government conspired to allow them to perish. They tell me the levees in the French Quarter didn't break. I won't remind them that there are no levees there.

One thing that is certain is that the government failed these people at every level. From the mayor straight up to the President. This is the United States of America and we are supposed to be better than this. It isn't about color or race, these people are American citizens and they deserved better than this.

I hope that things get better for the city and it's survivors but I'm not sure how it will happen. The most unsettleing thing is that hurricane seasons is only half a year away. What happens if this spring or summer the city gets hit with another monster storm? I don't even want to think about that.

Ultimately in a city that the country seems to have forgotten about, the people try to remain positive. As Mr. Gilette told me "Ain't nothing gonna hold these people down." For their sake I hope he's right.




Discuss this article in our forum.